I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to storage containers for scrap materials and in particular to such a container which enables the contents to be compressed by the tines of a forklift vehicle and which permits the scrap materials to be banded together to form a compact bundle.
II. Description of the Prior Art
Storage and disposal of scrap materials is a necessary but often costly and time consuming practice incident to many industrial and manufacturing operations. This is especially true in operations involving the delivery or receipt of parts of materials banded together so that they can be shipped in bulk. For example, when several pieces of pipe are to be shipped, they are banded together in a single bundle by several strips of metal banding. The metal band is wrapped around the pipe, tightened and then crimp locked in a manner well known. Subsequently, several such bundles are loaded onto a truck bed or other transfer platform and are again banded in a similar manner so that they are bound tightly to the truck bed or transfer platform.
Once the transport vehicle has reached its destination, the bands are cut and removed from the pipe. The scrap banding is then discarded, usually by throwing it into a large bin so that it does not clutter or interfere with business operations at the work area. The scrap banding accumulates in the bin and when the bin becomes filled, it is emptied into a truck or alternatively loaded onto a truck so that it can be shipped away and sold for salvage.
However, each loaded bin or truck contains much wasted space due to the resiliency of the banding. Since the salvage price for the scrap banding is determined by the net weight of each load of scrap delivered, it is advantageous to deliver the maximum possible weight of scrap that can fit into the container or in the truck in which the scrap is delivered for salvage. Unless the banding can be compressed so that the maximum weight per volume can be shipped with each load, many extra trips between the work area and the salvage yard are necessary to salvage the scrap even though the weight of scrap remains the same.
Consequently, the previously-known salvage of scrap bands has been heretofore extremely costly and time consuming. Moreover, since such scrap removal and salvage is merely incident to the industrial or commercial operations of the businesses using such banding, it is economically advantageous to keep the expense of such operations at a minimum.
There are several previously-known bundling and storage containers such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,459,120, 3,826,186, and 2,575,048. These devices, however, are generally directed for use in bundling newspapers and are not readily adaptable for use in large commercial industrial operations. Moreover, they are not appropriate for use in storing and discarding scrap banding. Another disadvantage of these previously-known storage and bundling containers is that they are rather complicated structures and therefore, even if they could be adapted for use in large scale scrap discard operations, they would be extremely costly and difficult to operate.